I confess that this post has almost no rationale beyond a simple idea off the top of my head having heard some figures which are well beyond my grasp to truly understand. However do leave a comment or reflection.
The Bank of England has today (Thursday) announced they are putting £75B into the economy (well into banks!!) in what they call quantitative easing.
I have a recipe for what I call social easing – forgive the rather rudimentary maths:
There are close to 1 Million young people who are not in work, education, employment or training based on the headline news reports. Those above 18 are entitled to job seekers allowance which is £53.45 per week so this is already costing the country £2,779 per person. If say half of these young people could be found work in businesses whose output was capable of adding to the social or economic wellbeing of society, and they were paid a living wage of £14,000, they would pay £1,000 in NI and £1,300 in tax (the employers would be the Government so no NI from them). These posts would add a net cost to the Exchequer of £9,000. Over a two-year period this would cost £18,000 per young person (or £9Bn). Our £9Bn has reduced youth unemployment by half, but also generated the GVA from the firms which further increases the income to the exchequer.
Meanwhile the banks have still got £64B to ease quantities unless someone else can do the maths on say increasing benefits to families, or perhaps create some other work opportunities. Over to you?
PS – I have now realised the figure above should be £66B – however what is £2B between friends and bloggers?
ianchisnall 
Nothing wrong with your maths Ian, except I’d suggest using the leftover 64bn for some other things on my wishlist to improve the economy, such as making loans available at sensible rates to businesses so they can grow, giving grants for businesses to improve the environmental efficiency of their buildings and cut their energy bills, extending your ideas to adults who are out of work, and maybe some training to upskill our workforce and get everyone being more productive.
There’s would probably be a little left over for a big bar of chocolate as a prize for you for pushing the debate.
I absolutely promise to share the bar of chocolate with you and anyone else who want to add to the idea. At this rate we could have World Peace by bedtime!
Loving this idea – if we could also get local landlords/ agents to think laterally and change the pricing and use of some of the many long term empty office blocks it would also support business development. We need more single site multi occupier flexible affordable quality office space for those businesses ready to move from co-worker or home based working into small self conained work units. Decent affordable well equiped accomodation on flexible terms is a must for development and expansion.
Fantastic Jan – i’ll put you down for a share of the chocolate bar.